Figure 1.

Primate mtDNAs able to functionally replace human mtDNA. Numbers at the nodes correspond to estimated time in millions of years (my) of common ancestry of different primate evolutionary branches. Although there is controversy on distances and branching (10), we have adopted estimates based on recent molecular data which include nuclear-coded proteins and mtDNA (11–13). mtDNA from species in bold were able to functionally replace the human mtDNA. Dashed boxes represent the suborder Anthropoidea, the infraorder Catarrhini, and the superfamily Hominoidea.